Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

37 Republicans: Disaster Aid for Me, Not For Thee

ThinkProgress has a list of 37 Republicans in Congress who voted against federal aid for the areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy but demanded disaster aid for their own districts after previous events. The list includes Rep. Dan Benishek of Michigan, who wanted aid for his district when there was a spring freeze that hurt farmers. Here’s the list:

Reminds me of all those Republicans who wrote letters asking for stimulus bill funding for their own district because that funding would create so many jobs and then turned around and claimed that the bill didn’t create any jobs at all.

Dan Benishek is a tea bagger. He replaced Bart Stupak, who was the Democrat who became infamous for supporting Obamacare but at a price.

During 2009 and early-2010, Rep. Stupak led an anti-abortion right caucus in Democratic Representatives in the House. They lied about abortion funding provisions in Obamacare in hopes of creating new laws making access to abortion more restrictive. He willingly offered up on Chris Matthews’ show that he was merely following the orders of Catholic bishops (Stupak is a Catholic); while noting his disdain for other Catholic groups who weren’t part of the Catholic hierarchy, like the biggest nuns group who advoated for Obamacare “as is”.

Ironically, Rep. Stupak and his immediate family was so egregiously threatened after voting for Obamacare by anti-abortion right activists, that a man and his son are now in prison for promising to paint the Mackinac Bridge in his district with his and his family members’ blood. (Stupak chose to retire and didn’t run in ’10).

Rep. Benishek is a classic example of a tea bagger, with all the arguments one would expect from them while also using the typical set of denialist premises, e.g., tax cuts on the wealthy grows the economy and jobs, pro-coal and oil subsidies in spite of how dramatic climate change is in his district). His district now includes Traverse City, a somewhat liberal bastion, at least for northern Michigan. Hopefully that city can come up with a viable Democrat to challenge Benishek in ’14; the Democrats failed spectacularly in ’10 and ’12 to nominate a viable candidate and yet Benishek barely squeaked out a victory in ’12.

I was just reading about a republican politician who changed his tune on ACA after he, himself, went through a stroke or something. He said that he recognized how much harder recovery would have been without the cushy benes he has.

I’d settle for the strokes being contagious among teabaggers. Then at least they would have a reason for their drooling.* And yes, I am something of a heartless fuck when I’m dealing with heartless fucks.

For those who don’t know, Michigan lost nearly all of its cherry, apple, peach and other orchard crops in 2012 (Michigan produces nearly all the pie cherries in the U.S.). Record warm temperatures in March (in the 70s and 80s F) pushed the trees into growth five weeks early, and subsequent hard freezes killed the flower buds. Since they’re not one of the major subsidized crops, apparently you can’t purchase insurance for orchards.

When Rachel Maddow was profiling Bart Stupak during the ACA debate, she actually interviewed Ed about him. It’s probably in her show’s archives, if you’re interested.

I saw it. Over the course of many shows, Rachel Maddow’s representation of Bart Stupak was the worst journalism displayed by her that I’ve encountered. She both defamed him and did so on premises that high-information Michigan voters already knew to be false.

The buffoon Chris Matthews actually got the scoop on Rep. Stupak’s motivations, which was his fealty to the Catholic hierarchy’s political agenda. One example of Ms. Maddow’s defamation of Rep. Stupak was repeatedly claiming Rep. Stupak was exploiting Obamcare to further his political career, one example being a run for governor in 2010. That was in spite of the fact he’d already started hinting he was leaving office at the end of his term. Her imaginings of his motivations were expressed without any reporting noting any evidence. In fact by the time Ms. Maddow had started her dishonest character attack on Rep. Stupak, he’d already decided and announced he was also not going to run for governor in 2010, plus a Democrat running as a notably anti-choice candidate would have gravely harmed his chance to win office making even her imaginings ignorant to the dynamics of Michigan politics.

I think Rachel Maddow’s enormously talented with great aptitude though I rarely watch her anymore (I rarely watch TV news except for Fareed Zakaria and Anderson Cooper). Her arguments are too narrowly crafted and favor a partisan agenda; where I despise badly crafted arguments. Perhaps someday she’ll become seasoned and emotionally mature enough to attract me; I hope so because again, she’s got great aptitude.

For those who don’t know, Michigan lost nearly all of its cherry, apple, peach and other orchard crops in 2012 (Michigan produces nearly all the pie cherries in the U.S.). Record warm temperatures in March (in the 70s and 80s F) pushed the trees into growth five weeks early, and subsequent hard freezes killed the flower buds. Since they’re not one of the major subsidized crops, apparently you can’t purchase insurance for orchards.

I live in the area hit with this heat wave. Here is how extreme it was. In my town of Gaylord, MI, our record highs for the days the heat wave hit in March were previously in the high fifties. Early March is still winter for us here, Spring comes in mid-April, e.g., golf courses open in late-April after the snow is gone. These new record highs were 20+ degrees over the previous record highs; let me repeat that the records were over 20 degrees higher than the previous records.

However grapes were not harmed in the subsequent frosts that hit after this heat wave. The long hot dry summer led to one of the best years ever for our wine industry, which is located in the Traverse City / Grand Traverse area – particularly Old Mission Peninsula and Leelanau County. (There is a jug wine area in SW Michigan, the Traverse area wineries are focused on crafting good wines.)